OUROBOROS

Wonderful high-energy prog bordering on jazz-fusion from Spain's best. This album notes the loss of OMAR ACOSTA's amazing flute play as well as, sadly, the amazing voice of operatic singer CAROLINA PRIETO (thought she does perform on the bonus "live" performance of the epic "Mysticae Visones"), but the band still manages to produce mind-blowing songs, sounds, and play--much of which is on the same level and style as that of the 1978-79 quartet known as BRUFORD. Bassist-extraordinaire Jaime PASCUAL is really on fire throughout! And the PLAZA family father-daughter keyboard team (Carlos and Adriana) is really stepping up their game. The only thing lacking, IMHO, is a little more melody to keep the listener engaged.

1. "Amphisbaena" (7:28) faultless, virtuosic musicianship over this dynamic song. Some nice melodies to latch onto. (13.5/15)

2. "Ouroboros" (16:07) César Garcia Forero's guitar competing with both Adriana and Carlos's synths is stunning! Then piano and xylophone take over the battle with Jaime's bass and César's guitars joining in. At 3:45 César introduces the melodic hook around which all else is then built--picked up by Carlos during a spacey interlude before Jaime, César and drums rejoin. Things pick up and even get a little frantic in the fifth and sixth minutes before a real slow down in the seventh which turns into a kind of freaky walk through some kind of house of mirrors or eerie dark alley. When the piano leads the band back into a nice forward pace in the tenth minute, the new music has an interesting ELP jazziness to it--a circular piano theme that affects the whirlpool of music played by all of the other musicians over the course of the next four minutes. When the piano the big bass chords to bring it all to an end, the other band members have to stop and come to terms with their new surroundings of spaciousness. Guitar, Mellotron, and bass lead the way into a new Crimsonian weave to the song's ultimate and surprising end. Not the most melodic of song suites, this is more than made up for by the fact that there is the sense that a real story got played out here. Amazing! (27/30)

3. "Satyrs" (7:26) cool drumming and bass playing with abrasive and Hammond organ leading the way. The second minute sounds as if Robert Fripp was having one of his angular chord fests: "Which dirty/raunchy chords can I throw together to rile up the audience (and other band members)?" There's a real 1970s YES "Close to the Edge" feel to this music. I keep expecting in the frequent little pauses a bank of harmonized boices to sing, "Ahh!" Interesting, to say the very least. Let's call it, "The Solid Time of Change, II." At first I wasn't really liking this (the sound palette) but ended up loving it! (14/15)

4. "Simurgh" (13:09) a minimalist start with piano and percussion arpeggi repeating in an odd time signature while drums, bass, and guitar try to work their way into the weave. César Garcia Forero works in some of the catchiest melodies and lead guitar play to ever grace the Kotebel discography until the end of the fourth minute when a shift in pace and motif drives the music forward from the potent playing drummer Carlos Franco. Hard-hitting piano and bass accent and support Carlos' driving play while César picks up his lead deliverance of melody and fire. In the eighth minute, piano and bass really shine (Jaime is on fire!) within which we get a whole passage in which César's Allan Holdsworth-like playing meshes with the Plazas' keys and Carlos and Jaimie's drums and bass, respectively, giving it such a sound like something from the 1978-9 BRUFORD ensemble. Wonderful stuff! Great finish! (23/25)

5. "Behemoth" (7:40) slow, plodding start with deep low ends and ear-piercingly high piano and synth play open this for the first three minutes. Jaime's rolling bass play is so perfect for a lumbering beast, and the odd panning synths give it such a mysterious feel. In the fifth minute Jaime is pretty much given the lead while the rest "join in" and act as if following or attacking the beast. Occasional pauses make one wonder what is happening, but the classical-sounding piano play is so captivating and beautiful that one forgets (and, frankly, doesn't care), but then Jaime's personalized bass returns amidst curtains of synth washes and cymbal crashes while César and Carlos Plaza seem to portray the trail of destruction the beast (inadvertently?) leaves in its wake. Cool theme music for a Godzilla-like scene. (13.5/15)

6. "Legal Identity v1.5" (3:54) a repetitive BRUFORD "Hell's Bells"-like full-band weave of ripping-fast staccato notes is stripped down to piano only for a minute or so in the third minute so that Carlos' synth rapier can do its work. Back to the frenetic "Hell's Bells" weave for César to deliver not one but two stunning Allan Holdsworth-like soli. Not so melodic but impressive as hell playing. (9/10)

- Bonus track - Recorded at Gouveia Art Rock 2001 : 7. "Mysticae Visiones" (live) (16:23) an epic suite from the band's 2002 release of the same name, here we have César playing, as he does on the studio version, at his breakneck, frenetic speed, while Carlos Plaza's keyboard chord play supports. The presence of Adriana's piano, Carlos Franco's drums, and Jaime's virtuosic bass play give this such fuller dimension than the original. Then, of course, we are graced by the incredible vocal talents of Ms. Prieto as she mesmerizes like a siren with her vocalise. The following sections are noteworthy for their "normalcy" that is, their display of (relative) simplicity. In comparison to the compositonal complexity and instrumental difficulties of their more recent songs, one can determine just how far the band (and Carlos) have come in their musical and compositional evolution. Theere are parts that play out just like jazz passages, with the band pretty much setting up for other members' solos, sometimes playing some fairly simple and straightforward chord progressions--something the band post 2008 never does. Again, every part of this performance only holds light to the fact of the band's tremendous and exponentially expansive growth; what was a collective of fledglings in 2001 are now a celebration of virtuosi!

Total Time 72:07

In my opinion, from 2006, with the release of Omphalos, to 2017, when the band released its fourth album, Cosmology, no band in Prog World released a quadrille of albums on as high a level as Kotebel, and though this album gets less return visits from me than Omphalos or 2012's Concerto for Piano and Electric Ensemble, the quality of play from all musicians involved has never been higher than it is on Ouroboros.

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of progressive rock music--music that would be loved by any and all who like and appreciate complex, virtuosic performances in the same vein as BRUFORD, UK, ÄNGLAGÅRD, and THIEVES KITCHEN.